Excerpts from the Arab and Iranian Media & Analysis of US Policy in the Region

Abdel Beri Atwan thinks Saudi plate is too full to execute financial blackmail against US over 9/11; Picture of sickened Algerian president rachets up leadership crisis

Abdel Beri Atwan in his Rai al-Yom:
“All that we can say is that this institution is good at blackmailing means. It might have decided to seize most if not all the Saudi financial assets… Pressure is mounting against the Saudi leadership from several sides. The war in Yemen is stepping into its second year. It [i.e. Saudi Arabia] is also indirectly involved in Syria in addition to Iraq and the Arab and Islamic mobilization to confront the growing Iranian authority in the region. The Saudi plate is loaded with problems and wars and there is no room there for a legal war with the American ally.”

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On April 19, the Qatari-owned Al-Quds al-Arabi daily carried the following opinion piece by Algerian writer and journalist Toufik Rabahi: “Algeria found it very hard to overcome the shock caused by the picture of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika with his guest, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls. In reality, the picture in which the president looked tired, lost, distracted and pathetic united the Algerians, since millions of them were shaken by it, and felt shamed and humiliated. True, there is a psychological factor that only made things worse, and further deepened the pain and humiliation, which is the fact that it involved a French side, who intentionally leaked the picture. Indeed, Valls was not the first guest to post a picture with Bouteflika in such a tragic health condition, as he was preceded in that by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the beginning of February. But not many paid attention to the latter incident.

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Launched in May 2010, The Mideastwire Blog publishes key excerpts of our daily translations garnered from the Arab and Iranian media, as well as political analysis by Mideastwire.com co-founder Nicholas Noe